Folk metallers Finntroll are hard at work in the studio recording their sixth album at Sonic Pump Studios in Helsinki. The successor to Nifelvind and yet untitled album will be released worldwide through Century Media Records in late March 2013. The wait is finally over.

The band commented on their studio blog: "Combining our trademark sound with even more influences from non-traditional genres in metal music, we have created 11 songs which show you everything we want to offer. And boy, wasn't that one of the hardest task for some time. After all, how do you keep your sound fresh, yet familiar, after 6 albums and 15 years?

At some point, we were afraid that the songs are not melodic enough. Then we started to fear they became too melodic. Then we let the songs rest for a while and molded them more in a way that the non- melodic stuff got something to hum with, and the cheesy pop- songs were arranged more stripped and aggressive. We were confident, yet sometimes scared what will people think of the stuff we've been doing so hard. What if they hate it? That would be fine, but if they would hate it because the material was uninspiring, boring and done-to-death, that would be a huge disappointment. So, we kept pushing and tried to keep it fresh all the time while still having the 'this has to be Finntroll because no other band sounds this insane' - grinning going on."

While you wait for more details, you can listen to demo snippets here.

Fortunately, I believe Finntroll cares a lot about the quality of their music, which is something I can't say for many post 5 album bands. I'm looking forward to hearing them balance the aspects of their music again while still progressing their sound. It should be really good.